While Samsung was headlining its very own virtual assistant called Bixby when they announced the new flagships last March, apparently there were some glitches experienced that they were not able to make it work as it was supposed to once the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ hit the market. The voice feature in particular is still not available outside of its native South Korea, but at least now one other highlighted feature is rolling out to the flagship owners who are on Verizon.
Bixby Vision is a pretty nifty tool as you just point your camera at an object and it will be able to recognize and identify it. It also goes one step further as it is actually connected to your Amazon account and if that object is available there, then you can buy it immediately. Unfortunately (or fortunately for your wallet), that latter part was also not working at launch for Verizon users, but the carrier promised they were working on it.
The latest software update for the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ has supposedly fixed that problem already. Once you’ve updated your device, you will now be able to use Bixby Vision as it should be, with the shopping component, which may be good or bad news for you. But there’s still no news as to when the Bixby Voice feature will actually be available for those in the US.
In the meantime, if you’re looking for a virtual voice assistant, the Google Assistant SDK released the other day actually allows it to run on any device, not just those on Nougat. Someone has even modified it so that the AutoVoice Chrome Extension to call the SDK, triggering the always on feature. If you like tinkering around your phone, you can check it out here.
VIA: SAM Mobile
